Discovering Hattie Mosher, Phoenix, Arizona


If you're interested in Phoenix history, you know about Hattie Mosher. If you're just getting started, you'll meet her. You can't miss her. You can Google information about her, but like most stuff on the internet, there's just too much, so I'll try to explain her briefly here.


The Lount Ice Plant in 1905, Phoenix Arizona. This is where Hattie's fortune came from. Sam Lount was her dad.

The first thing that you need to know about her is that she lived in Phoenix and inherited a lot of wealth from her father. I won't do the "equivalent to today's dollars", but it was a ton of bucks. Her dad sold ice in Territorial Phoenix, so you can imagine that he made a LOT of money. So she inherited a ridiculous amount of money, and land, too.

The land she inherited included several square blocks of what is now downtown Phoenix, from Central to 2nd Street, and from Taylor to Van Buren. Her house was there, right in the middle of where the ASU Law Building is now, between Taylor and Polk, between 1st and 2nd Streets.

Looking northeast towards Camelback Mountain in the 1940s, Phoenix, Arizona. Hattie's house is right in the middle of the mostly empty lot.

I'd like to start with the end of her life, which was tragic. It's sad for anyone to die in poverty, and that's what happened to Hattie. She died of malnutrition at age 82, after having squandered all of her money. She wandered the streets of Phoenix.

I have a neighbor who remembers seeing Hattie back in the early forties. Hattie would walk around downtown Phoenix, and apparently was a scary sight for a little girl to see. My neighbor remembers vividly that Hattie always wore an old-fashioned dress, and bright red lipstick.

Hattie had a lot of money, but she didn't like to pay taxes. She didn't think the streets should be paved, for example. She fought City Hall for years, and eventually City Hall won, and started paying off her property to pay for back taxes. By the time Hattie died, her fortune was gone.


"Mosher's Folly" in the 1930s, Central Avenue and Taylor, Phoenix, Arizona

If you remember back to the 1940s, you may remember a building that was always "under construction" at Central Avenue and Taylor. It was to be a hotel, but it was never finished, and people in Phoenix called it "Mosher's Folly". And if you remember the old Ramada Inn in the 1970s, you may remember that the restaurant and bar there was called "Hattie Mosher's", which was a smile and a wink to the fact that it sat on the property where Hattie's house had been.

The Ramada Inn in the 1970s, 1st Avenue and Polk. Note the name of the bar, which was Hattie Mosher's.

Image at the top of this post: Hattie Mosher and her bicycle. She was one of the first women in Phoenix to ride a bicycle in public, and it was scandalous. Note that women's bicycles were designed without a crossbar, to allow women to ride while wearing a dress. Girls' bikes are still designed that way.
If you like pictures of old-time Phoenix, please become a member of History Adventuring on Patreon. I share a LOT of cool old photos there, copyright-free, with no advertising. Your support makes it happen! Thank you!

Click here to become a Patron!

Comments

  1. UnknownSeptember 28, 2020 at 8:47 PM

    Unbelievable events that plagued poor Madam. Hattie. She was a victim just because she was a woman, (an easy target), for those who apparently robbed her out of her own wealth. Just goes to show that greed has always existed, and Ppl in high places, scheming to take from others for thier self interests and financial gains.
    R.I.P. Ms.Hattie Mosher

    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownSeptember 28, 2020 at 8:48 PM

    Comment made by Mr. Joseph Munoz

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why cars in the future won't need stop signs, red lights, or stripes on the road

Image
Time-travel with me into the future. Where we're going, we'll still need roads, but our cars won't need the kind of stuff that human drivers need, like stop signs, or stuff painted on the road. And if you're already panicking that computers will take over, don't worry, they already have. The fact that you're reading this right now combines so much amazing computing power that it would have been unthinkable to anyone in the 1960s, or '70s, when I was a kid. Speaking of being in the geriatric age group, if you're like me or older, you took a lot of pride in knowing the rules of the road, such as what to do at a stop sign if four cars approach at the same time, the difference between a "yield" sign and a "merge" sign, or maybe how to parallel park. But calm down there old-timer, that type of knowledge will just be as quaint as how to use a horse and buggy is nowadays. Sorry! The best way to picture how traffic will flow in the future is
Read more

Why did Adolf Hitler always have such a bad haircut?

Image
As someone who has been interested in history since I was a little kid, I've always asked the most childish questions, and quite often never got an answer. As a kid, I was told to run along and play, and don't bother the grownups, so I set my questions aside to work on when I myself became a grownup. But some questions I really haven't found a satisfactory answer for, and get thrown away as I find myself learning the more important stuff. I now understand the grownups, but the kid in me still has childish questions like "Why did Adolf Hitler always have such a bad haircut?" The first question to ask is whether a particular style (whether hair, clothing, etc.) was in style at the time. The moustache was, and you can Google a photo of Charlie Chaplin, who wore the same style of moustache at the time, and quite stylishly. The wide lapels were in style in the 1930s, as was were the tall shirt collars and small ties. But the haircut wasn't - it's just awful. Me
Read more

Watching a neighborhood grow and change in Phoenix, Arizona

Image
I stopped to take a closer look yesterday at where the old Circle K had been in my neighborhood, which is a suburb of Phoenix. And it's got me to thinking about how much Phoenix grows and changes over the years, and how people feel about it. This particular neighborhood was built in the mid 1980s, when there had been only a smattering of houses and a community college (Glendale Community College, built in 1965). There are some houses that I can tell are from the 1970s, and a few even older, but what happened here is that the neighborhood suddenly appeared in 1985 or thereabouts. There are three shopping centers on the corner of 67th Avenue and Peoria - the one in the photo is called "Peoria Station", and it was designed to kinda look like a train station. The other three are called Westporte Village, Brittany Square, and Crossroads Plaza. I've lived in this neighborhood for a very long time, and no one ever uses those names, even though the signs are still up. But the
Read more